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Shadow Pagoda
Here I will be posting scribbles, snippets, and other pieces of writing. Definitely did not swipe this idea from Lavender. Content on this page is © 2020 Samurai, all rights reserved. Disclaimer: This page may contain mild language. The Note And here I was, thinking you would never let me down. Here I was, thinking you actually cared, thinking that what we had actually meant something, anything. Turns out, it didn't mean anything at all, and you didn't either. He read the end to the scathing note again and again, each time wishing he could make the words hurt more. She'd betrayed him! She'd bloody betrayed him! She'd betrayed everyone, and she deserved every ounce of venom in those words. He wished he'd be there to see the look on her face when she received the note, the look she got when she realized someone was finally calling her out on her twistedness. But he wouldn't, because unlike the others, he wasn't going anywhere near her again. That lying snake, that entitled witch, that wicked, treacherous temptress was not going to hurt him anymore. Master Swan's Onesie It was a dark, stormy night, and he sat by the fireplace, hot chocolate in hand, book in lap, and onesie on body. (To be continued.) The Wind I heard his name on the wind, and it's not a name I thought I'd ever hear again. It was like the angels carried his voice down from heaven and cast it into the wind, knowing that it would be brought to my ears. I heard it whispered to me over and over as the wind came by, an ethereal song I never tired of: Your son. Your son. Your son. That's the most of a name he had - they took him from me before I could call him anything else. But it was a beautiful thing to hear all the same, and the wounds in my heart healed a little at the sound of it. I could never get my child back, but the wind let me hear his voice. Hello, Mother, the wind whispered. It's your son. I could listen to the wind forever. Run, Thorn, Run The village was so far...too far... Thorn's lungs felt like they were about to collapse, each stabbing gasp threatening to tear them apart. His legs felt broken and weak, and every bone in them felt like it had been crushed. He was covered in dried mud from the puddles and marshes he'd sprinted through, as well as dried blood from the thorns that had clawed at him the entire way. But he couldn't stop. He kept running, though his body couldn't take much more, and he cursed himself again and again for not having any means of teleportation with him. There hadn't been time to grab any enchanted objects... There wasn't time for anything. He had to warn them before it was too late. Furious Gods The rain came down, and with it came the burning stones. Hordes of embers, hordes of them! Never in my life had I seen that many blazing rocks, not even in the forges of the giants. They poured relentlessly from the heavens, a punishment from the gods, and the wind howled, sending the stones pattering against the mountainside. As the storm of fire stones raged on, the rocks grew to be the most titanic, colossal boulders I had ever seen, scorching the earth and sky with their fury, and no one in the kingdom was safe from their wrath. All we could do was cower under the mountain and hope it would shield us from the gods' anger, all the while wondering what we'd done. The Letter "What is this?" he demanded to no one, pushing away from his desk with the strange letter in his hand. It was addressed to him, but the sender hadn't signed their name anywhere. The envelope had no return address, though the postage had been paid, and the paper was strange and foreign. It was almost like ancient parchment, though he couldn't be sure what it was made of, and the handwriting upon it was elegant and spidery. Nothing he recognized. "Who sent me this?" he muttered, scanning the letter again. He had already read it twice, but he went through it again, searching for any clues, any hints as to who the sender might be. He found nothing, no diction that was particular of someone he knew, no clues between the lines. All he could see was the strange handwriting on the strange paper, written in strange red ink. "No matter," he said to himself. "I've better things to do than pore over ridiculous letters from people who can't even be bothered to sign their name." He crumpled the letter and cast it into the fireplace, the paper immediately catching fire and slowly vanishing into the ashes. He stood up and went into the kitchen to start some tea, his feet creaking on the floorboards, and as he left the room, he heard something from the fireplace. Whispering. Turning back, he saw a tendril of red smoke reach out from the cinders, clawing its away across the room, tainting the clear air. Something in the fire smiled broadly, and the tendril came closer. I knew you wouldn't heed my warning, mortal fool. The smoke swallowed his scream. A Moment in the Light I hadn't seen the sun in such a long time, and it was a beautiful sight, so beautiful that I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was. All those colors, all that light, all that warmth... It was wonderful. I inhaled deeply, looking up at that clear, bright sky, and it was the most marvelous blue I had ever seen. It put gemstones to shame, an empyrean ocean of endless cerulean and azure and cobalt, and I reached out, wishing I could caress it. The sun smiled at me, and I smiled back, closing my eyes and relishing the peace I was allowed at last. The warm light from that wonderful, blessed star seemed to heal all my wounds, the seen and the unseen, and all the pain I had ever known, pain of body and pain of heart, was gone, even if it was just for a moment. I knew that soon they would take me back underground, back to my prison under the mountain. Soon I would be trapped beneath the earth for another hundred years, back in the dark, back in the cold, back in the misery. But now, in this moment, I was in the light, and I loved that light. Even when I was back in the dark, I wasn't going to let that light go. An Apology He expected me to be able to fix it. ME, the one he was always yelling at for screwing up. ME, the one who never did anything right. ME, the one who broke everything I touched. I bit my lip and looked at his broken little life in my hands. There he was, standing in the threshold of death, and he would pass through it if I didn't do something. He expected me to fix this, to fix him, but after all those failures, after all the times I couldn't fix something that went wrong... How could I? I, his ethereal guardian, was the reason for all of this. I, his empyrean protector, was the reason he was standing there in death's doorway. I, his angelic sentinel, was the reason his life was broken. I couldn't fix it. Folding my wings back, I cradled his near-lifeless form to my chest and whispered two words, two words I had said over and over, two words that had lost meaning. "I'm sorry." A Basket on the Doorstep Outside, there was crying. It was the piercing, unmistakable crying of an infant, and he sighed, putting his book over his face. People walked by the house all the time, and when they weren't laughing too loud or screaming at the top of their lungs about some dumb topic of conversation, they had a shrieking baby with them. He willed them to walk faster and take their banshee far away from his house, but when the crying persisted, showing no sign of going away, he snapped. He was done with all this noise! "All right," he snarled after storming to the door and throwing it open. "What in the name of-" He stopped, seeing no one on the sidewalk. Not a soul. The street was empty too, and so was the sidewalk on the other side - it was all deserted, glimmering with fresh rainfall in the evening sunlight. But the crying was louder than ever. He looked down, and to his horror, there was a basket sitting on the step, filled with blankets. Blankets and something else. No. No. NO. He was NOT taking in a baby. He had NO interest in being a father. He HATED children, HATED them, and he wanted nothing to do with the screaming and the crying and the- The crying stopped. The child looked into his eyes, blue meeting grey, and it smiled a little, though he most certainly did not offer the same gesture in return. But... There was something about this child that... He knelt down, reaching out to it, and its tiny hand closed around his fingers. Its smile grew, and deep within his scarred, frozen heart, something melted. No. No. NO. But a tiny part of him didn't care, and it told him to smile back. He didn't. He scowled at the child, wanting to resent it for being on his doorstep, but he couldn't. He couldn't smile, but he couldn't hate it, and he hated that. Especially when he found the note beside it. The paper was torn, and the handwriting was barely legible. It read in large letters the phrase Love and care for her, and while he wanted nothing more than to crumple the note and burn it, he found himself folding it and slipping it into his pocket. Love and care for her. He hated that he was willing to do that. "Come on," he heard himself say, and he picked up the basket and went inside. Struggle It’s a struggle going through the day – it’s always been. I’m lost and empty, hollow and cold, and I don’t know what’s missing. I don’t know what I need. I’ve never known. I’ve never known anything. If only I knew what was missing, if only I knew what I needed, then maybe, just maybe, I could finally find peace. I could finally get through the day with a smile on my face, a simple thing so many people take for granted. I could finally be happy, a feeling so many people don’t realize others don’t have. I could finally not struggle.Category:Content (Samurai) Category:Stories